wild rootstock for plum and cherry

[Del]

Hi, new member here. I have several wild trees growing like weeds on my property. "Choke-cherries" or wild bird cherries, and an old stand of , what I am told is, wild "damson plums". I have access to two more edible varietys. One a nice tart pie cherry, name unknown. The second is a Methley plum. I was curious if my "wild" trees, would make suitable root-stock, for the two tastier versions. Thanks for any info,

Del

[sherwin dubren]

Del,

The Methley Plum is a cultivar of a Japanese Plum which could be grafted onto a Damson plum, a European Plum variety. I have grafted Asian plums onto a Stanley European Plum with good success.

Both the wild bird cherry and your sour cherry are both prunus varieties, so I see no reason why this combination would not work. There are actually two different cherries here. The wild cherry is prunus avium native to the south of the USA. It is sometimes used as a rootstock for ornamental cherries. The other type is bird cherry prunus padis found in the North. I'm not sure what you have. The wild cherry variety is commonly used as a cherry rootstock and usually is called a Mazzard rootstock. Sour cherries are usually put on Mahaleb rootstock. If you use the wild cherry as rootstock for the sour cherries, I imagine it would work, but it is not the preferred choice for most people.

You have to consider size of the resultant trees. Mazzard is a full size tree, and there are other rootstock's like Gisela that will reduce the size of your tree by 50% or more. You do not specify what size both of these trees are.

I'm not sure how you intend to graft onto these existing trees. I think you are contemplating top working or grafting onto specific branches. I would recommend a chip bud or similar graft to be done in the summer.

Hope I have answered your questions,

Sherwin